Category: Personal

She was a fairly recent acquaintance, someone I’d met through work. Although she was outwardly reserved, I’d hoped we were kindred spirits under the surface, but it turned out I was wrong. We’d met for coffee and I’d asked her for help dealing with a difficult situation with another work colleague. And that’s when she said it.

It turns out my issue with the other work colleague probably has something to do with my oversharing, too. “It’s not professional,” I can picture her saying, perhaps wagging a finger.

Over the past year, I can think of at least six people who’ve been unhappy with my level of personal disclosure online. Strangely enough, every single one of those people is from an English or Scottish background.

I’m Irish. In my childhood home, arguments were normal. One of my dearest memories of my parents is of me storming off to my room in the middle of an argument, and them gently knocking a few minutes later. They didn’t let me run away from my feelings. We sorted stuff out, sometimes messily, but in the present.

We’re often told not to “bottle up” our emotions, that it might lead to “explosions” of feeling, or maybe violence. But I think I have a better metaphor. Sinkholes are formed when water accumulates under a land surface and the soil underneath erodes, leading to a sudden collapse.

A sinkhole is a good representation of what happened to my marriage, I think.

I’ve always needed an outlet for my emotions. I don’t consider myself an extravert, so often I’ve dealt with things by writing about them. When personal online publishing became a reality in the late 1990s, the issue of oversharing became inevitable, although not many people would have foreseen it at the time. As someone who began keeping a homepage in those days, and then starting a personal blog, I’m bound to be stuck in my idealistic, perhaps naive, way of thinking. We didn’t do it for “hits” or traffic. We did it to find connection, to make some friends who might understand us, even though we didn’t live near each other.

Fourteen years ago this week, I attended my very first SXSW Interactive conference in Austin, Texas. The personal weblog I’d started the previous year, the one you’re reading this on right now, had led to the establishment of a few tentative friendships. As I got off the plane in Austin, I was nervous. Would these people like me in real life? Would we be the same people we portrayed ourselves as online? It was a real concern. Imagine my relief when people I’d only known as text on a screen came up to me and hugged me. We’d found our “tribe,” we’d say, and years later, many of those people are still very dear to me.

So when my life began to come apart last year, I turned to a group of people who are spread out all over the world. I don’t see many of them often, we don’t even speak on the phone very much. This is the new reality of connection. I shared my life struggles with these people, on this blog, on Facebook, on Twitter, wherever else my real friends might be. Sure, lots of other people can see what I’m writing. I’m not ashamed. I wear my heart on my sleeve whenever possible, and I’m freer because of it.

I may lose people who don’t like that. I won’t say friends because how could they be friends if they’re embarrassed by me? I may lose potential jobs or work opportunities because of that. To that, I’d offer that my online presence was formed in the years before “social media” was something for my resume, when it was a way for me and millions of others to find our voices and use them. When the web was more about personalities and less about commerce. I’m not using a bullhorn to talk about myself, but I won’t be shushed, either.

In an age when the notion of “privacy” is under attack, I overshare. My government and several other governments, along with most of the world’s largest corporations, know so much about me already. What I buy, what I read, how I vote, where I go, what websites I visit, what I search for. Why not show them and the rest of the world the real me? I’m so much more than my data points. I’m a glorious ball of contradictions, stumbling through this life making mistakes and finding joy and enduring pain and loving and being loved, being misunderstood and ignored, and maybe hated, too.

So, last weekend, I turned 50 years old! It’s hard for me to believe, but it really happened. And despite it being the coldest night of the winter so far, at least 25 of my friends made the journey (some from as far away as Waterloo!) down to Kensington Market to celebrate with me. I’ve been a recent regular at a cozy little bar called the Kensington Lodge, and they were nice enough to let me curate my very own playlist of favourites. I’d been planning to include music spanning my entire lifetime, but I found that by the time I got to 1985, the playlist was 150 songs and more than 9 hours long. That’s the reason that I started my party at 5:00pm! Even so, we only got up to about 125 songs played before we all headed home. Here for posterity is my epic playlist. And I’d be happy to organize another 9-hour party somewhere just so I could play this again!

p.s. The above photo was actually taken at Kensington Lodge the night of my party. I don’t know whether that sign was there just for me, but it felt appropriate. 🙂

Help! – The Beatles (1965)

In My Life – The Beatles (1965)

Le temps de l’amour – Françoise Hardy (1965)

All Day and All of the Night – The Kinks (1965)

Satisfaction – The Rolling Stones (1965)

I Fought the Law – The Bobby Fuller Four (1966)

Judge Dread – Prince Buster (1966)

Wipeout – The Ventures (1966)

Here Comes My Baby – Cat Stevens (1967)

These Days – Nico (1967)

The Way Young Lovers Do – Van Morrison (1968)

Rain From the Skies – Delroy Wilson (1969)

Whole Lotta Love – Led Zeppelin (1969)

No Fun – The Stooges (1969)

Wild World – Cat Stevens (1970)

What is Life? – George Harrison (1970)

Who Loves the Sun? – The Velvet Underground (1970)

Sweet Leaf – Black Sabbath (1971)

Queen Bitch – David Bowie (1971)

Cross-Eyed Mary – Jethro Tull (1971)

Do Ya – The Move (1971)

Thirteen – Big Star (1972)

Growin’ Up – Bruce Springsteen (1972)

Dream On – Aerosmith (1973)

Search and Destroy – Iggy and the Stooges (1973)

She Cracked – The Modern Lovers (1973)

Higher Ground – Stevie Wonder (1973)

Magic – Pilot (1974)

Bohemian Rhapsody – Queen (1975)

More Than a Feeling – Boston (1976)

Livin’ Thing – Electric Light Orchestra (1976)

Carry On Wayward Son – Kansas (1976)

Blinded by the Light – Manfred Mann’s Earth Band (1976)

Blitzkrieg Bop – The Ramones (1976)

I Wish – Stevie Wonder (1976)

Breakdown – Buzzcocks (1977)

Sonic Reducer – Dead Boys (1977)

Go Your Own Way – Fleetwood Mac (1977)

Barracuda – Heart (1977)

The Passenger – Iggy Pop (1977)

Teenage Lobotomy – The Ramones (1977)

God Save the Queen – Sex Pistols (1977)

Hanging on the Telephone – Blondie (1978)

Just What I Needed – The Cars (1978)

Uncontrollable Urge – Devo (1978)

Shot By Both Sides – Magazine (1978)

Hot Child in the City – Nick Gilder (1978)

Another Girl, Another Planet – The Only Ones (1978)

So Lonely – The Police (1978)

I Just Wanna Have Something to Do – The Ramones (1978)

Nicotine Stain – Siouxsie and the Banshees (1978)

Warning Sign – Talking Heads (1978)

52 Girls – The B-52s (1979)

Someone’s Lookin’ at You – The Boomtown Rats (1979)

I Want You to Want Me – Cheap Trick (1979)

London Calling – The Clash (1979)

New York City – The Demics (1979)

Tired of Waking Up Tired – The Diodes (1979)

Hey St. Peter – Flash and the Pan (1979)

Damaged Goods – Gang of Four (1979)

Flat Tire – The Government (1979)

I’m Bored – Iggy Pop (1979)

Got the Time – Joe Jackson (1979)

Transmission – Joy Division (1979)

Disorder – Joy Division (1979)

My Sharona – The Knack (1979)

Pop Muzik – M (1979)

Bed and Breakfast Man – Madness (1979)

Cruel to Be Kind – Nick Lowe (1979)

In The Flesh? – Pink Floyd (1979)

Bring on the Night – The Police (1979)

Rock Billy Boogie – Robert Gordon (1979)

I Got You – Split Enz (1979)

Cool for Cats – Squeeze (1979)

The Logical Song – Supertramp (1979)

Heaven – Talking Heads (1979)

Picture My Face – Teenage Head (1979)

Down in the Park – Tubeway Army (1979)

Teenage Kicks – The Undertones (1979)

Making Plans for Nigel – XTC (1979)

Ant Music – Adam and the Ants (1980)

A Forest – The Cure (1980)

Twist and Crawl – The English Beat (1980)

Raised Eyebrows – The Feelies (1980)

My Mistake – The Kingbees (1980)

This Beat Goes On/Switchin’ to Glide – The Kings (1980)

A Song from Under the Floorboards – Magazine (1980)

Paint by Number Heart – Martha and the Muffins (1980)

Ace of Spades – Mötorhead (1980)

Blue Boy – Orange Juice (1980)

The Wait – Pretenders (1980)

High School Confidential – Rough Trade (1980)

Happy House – Siouxsie and the Banshees (1980)

Do Nothing – The Specials (1980)

Pulling Mussels – Squeeze (1980)

Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On) – Talking Heads (1980)

Disgusteen – Teenage Head (1980)

Los Angeles – X (1980)

Brand New Life – Young Marble Giants (1980)

Black and White – The dB’s (1981)

Watch Your Step – Elvis Costello and The Attractions (1981)

Sex Beat – Gun Club (1981)

Sorry for Laughing – Josef K (1981)

Academy Fight Song – Mission of Burma (1981)

Ceremony – New Order (1981)

Super Freak – Rick James (1981)

Tainted Love – Soft Cell (1981)

Ghost Town – The Specials (1981)

Throwing My Baby Out with the Bathwater – Tenpole Tudor (1981)

Song Without an Ending – The The (1981)

It’s Going to Happen! – The Undertones (1981)

The Look of Love (Part One) – ABC (1982)

I Could Be Happy – Altered Images (1982)

I Love a Man in a Uniform – Gang of Four (1982)

Love Plus One – Haircut 100 (1982)

Compulsion – Joe Crow (1982)

The Safety Dance – Men Without Hats (1982)

Falling and Laughing – Orange Juice (1982)

Love My Way – The Psychedelic Furs (1982)

Someone Somewhere in Summertime – Simple Minds (1982)

Nova Heart – The Spoons (1982)

A New England – Billy Bragg (1983)

Don’t Walk Past – Blue Peter (1983)

The Walls Came Down – The Call (1983)

Saved By Zero – The Fixx (1983)

Laughing – R.E.M. (1983)

This Is The Day – The The (1983)

Europa and the Pirate Twins – Thomas Dolby (1983)

Blister in the Sun – Violent Femmes (1983)

Sixty Eight Guns – The Alarm (1984)

The Saturday Boy – Billy Bragg (1984)

Cath – The Bluebells (1984)

Gonna Get Close to You – Dalbello (1984)

Tenderness – General Public (1984)

Are You Ready to be Heartbroken? – Lloyd Cole and The Commotions (1984)

For a long time, the title of this post was going to be “F**k You 2014” (yes, my language has become much saltier over the past year), but I decided to change it to something that at least tries to look ahead rather than backward.

After losing my father in October 2012, my only blood relative in this hemisphere, my idea of family changed, was forced to change. And now I’ve lost both my partner and best friend, and her mother, the only mother I’ve known over the past two decades.

The sturdy structure I thought we’d been building together for nearly 17 years turned out to be made of spit and tissue paper.

I’ve written a lot about this, some publicly, most privately. But often I’m just reduced to mute:

Shock

Bafflement

Confusion

Fear

Sadness

Loss

Resentment

Anger

Pain

Abandonment

Betrayal

So this is definitely not my most articulate blog post.

And just to make things worse…

Since May (when I began keeping a written record), 78 job applications, not one interview.

I look at my dwindling savings (aka the inheritance I wasn’t supposed to be spending) and for the first time, I’m actually worried that I won’t recover from this. I want to be a part of the world and I know that I have a lot to contribute. But for the last year I’ve felt a bit like a surplus human being, unwanted, unneeded. That’s definitely not me. I need to get the twinkle back in my eye.

What does Act III look like for me? I turn 50 years old in February, and if I’m very lucky, I might have 25 years left of this life. What will I do with it? How will I learn from what’s gone before and make this next year and next stage of my life better?

I’d hoped that I’d be able to make this blog post a bit more hopeful. I don’t have the answers yet. Maybe I’ll never have them. The last year has been very hard, and I am hopeful the year ahead will be less hard. But that’s a pretty feeble kind of hope. A new friend has told me that my job for now is just to pass the time. Nature will sort out the rest.

So 2015 is a blanker canvas than I’d ever expected. To mix in some more creative metaphors, it’s a clean white page and an empty stage. And I’m trying to see that as a good thing.

These days, when December arrives, I begin scrambling to listen to as much music from the current year as I can. Although I hear a few things throughout the year, I’m always scrambling to make my Top Ten a fair list and not just the only ten new records I heard that year. I think I did a good job this year, although five of my top ten are year-end discoveries.

As soon as I heard the first notes of Alvvays’ “Adult Diversion,” I knew I was onto a good thing. Their first album is filler-free, nine perfectly-polished pop gems that will stick in your head immediately. I was also privileged to see them live twice this year (once opening for hardcore act Fucked Up, which was adorable). I’m also immensely proud to be putting a Toronto band top of my list for maybe the first time ever. And I’m excited that there are a few other local bands tilling the same dreampop ground that may make it onto my list next year (WISH, Moon King, The Lonely Parade, Iris).

And I have to mention being knocked out by First Aid Kit’s record Stay Gold quite late in the year. If you’ve read this blog this year, you’ll know that I’d be all over a record with that title, and lyrically and musically, it’s been a balm (yes, maybe a literal first aid kit) for my battered heart even as I find myself crying while listening to it.

Spoon made another solid record this year, but as with all of their more recent stuff, it’s taken me a while to let it settle in. Amazing that I’ve been listening to them for more than 15 years now.

My love affair with metal continues unabated, although I find a bit too many “doom” bands are stretching the songs to absurd lengths. That being said, Pallbearer’s excellent record cannot be denied its rightful place in my list. And nice to see another comeback record (At The Gates) to rival last year’s Carcass release.

The biggest surprise on the list is a band called The Bilinda Butchers, who have made a wildly ambitious concept album based on a 19th-century Japanese love story. With a band name that references one of my all-time ladyrock crushes, I was bound to give them a chance, but the record (which you can actually download and name your own price) is musically eclectic but always compelling. Check it out.

So another year of semi-random music listening, but that’s the way I like it. If I find myself listening to something a lot, it’s going to make my year-end list, and so without further ado, here are my favourite releases of the past year.

So, I am moving. Not too far, just down 18 floors in the same building. But of course, unearthing old stuff and memories and ghosts. Here’s an interesting poem I just found, written sometime in the late 1980s, after I’d moved out of the place I lived since I was six, and into my father’s cramped and smoky apartment.

Moving

my life won’t fit into these boxes
something will be left behind,
forgotten,
and my grief won’t fit into these cliches
something’s been lost
is being lost
I can’t even write
how I feel
I think about climbing
into a box with my things
like a pharaoh.